the chain of life

The chain of life

You don’t need me to tell you that human beings are a pretty weird bunch. Seriously though, a friend of mine and I were talking and then this question came up. Why do people chase after things that have a disregard for them and in turn disregard things that chase after them?

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You’re a bit lost, so let me elaborate. In your love life for instance, you don’t want the guy or girl who clearly loves you and would do everything they could for you, instead you are chasing after someone else. Oh, don’t feel bad, you’ll be glad to know that that same person too is chasing after someone else who is doing to them what they are doing to you. It’s ridiculous I tell you.

Take this aforementioned friend of mine for an example. A girl he hardly likes is chasing after him. He is just using that girl for you know what. Don’t feel sorry for the girl just yet, because she is doing to another older guy the same thing my friend is doing to her. What she doesn’t know is that the older guy has even dreamt a future for both them, shame bakithi. And you know that this friend of mine is just lusting or loving after another girl who doesn’t know that he even exists.

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Here is a less funny example. Most of the people around me are either in school or have just graduated, either way they are looking for jobs or want ones better than those they already have. Even in this case, the same rules apply.

 I know a guy who quit a job because he says it bored him to death. On the same breath I know a guy who would do quite a lot just to get the very same job the first guy quit.

I know what you’re thinking and you can stop wishing. Yes, the first guy who quit his ‘boring job’ is looking for a job that he loves, a job he knows he can do great things in. Guess who has that very job? That’s right! Someone who couldn't care less about it. In fact, for that person this is just a job, but for this guy this could be his life! Everything is just a never-ending vicious circle.

So what’s your point!? [That’s you shouting at me through your screen]. Here it is. Whenever you do things don’t take them lightly. Always bear in mind that someone else would break an arm and a leg in trying to ensure that they are properly or efficiently taken care of.

We'll get rid of e-tolls......not really.

We'll get rid of e-tolls......not really

The happenings at the recently held Gauteng ANC elective congress have raised all sorts of opinions and excitement. President Jacob Zuma absence at the event has even fuelled notions that there may be a currently irreparable rift between the Gauteng and national ANC.

<Pic sourced: www.dailymaverick.co.za>

All stakeholders involved are exhibiting intrigue based on differing agendas. Whilst one group is salivating because of the perceived ructions within the ANC, another grouping is anxious as a direct result of these developments-however recent or long ago they are purported to have sprouted. 

The third horde however, is gleefully transfixed at these events as they constitute news, meaning more publication sales and ratings. There is an unspoken of  crop of people-who form the fourth group, or maybe I’m being presumptuous, instead of a multitude of people maybe I’m the only one who holds this view or sees this matter on this particular angle.

I, dear reader, feel that there are no ructions between the Walter Sisulu and Luthuli houses. In fact I would venture to say that all this is just a ploy- from the ruling party, to wrest back a proper stranglehold of Gauteng. This, for me smacks of the same often well-timed and strategically uttered vitriol and denigration that is spewed by COSATU’S very own comeback kid, Zwelinzima Vavi-I find it disingenuous that someone who can pin point and even say out loud repeatedly, the faults that are keeping in chains, South African labour and by default, the South African economy at large due to the maintaining of the exact complacent ineptitude that has led us into this pit to begin with, keeps steadfastly on in an alliance with the very same people perpetuating this ‘injustice’ he keeps pointing at.

Indeed I might even be tempted to supervise a fan page for the incumbent Numsa Secretary General, Irvin Jim. At least in all his protestations he has even endeavoured or at least threatened to sever ties with the COSATU and in automatically, the ruling party. That is a clear sign of disenchantment with an untenable relationship and a further visible resolve to solve the problem. I truly do not see that Paul Mashatile and co have the intent to carry out this perceived mutiny of theirs. I’m not arguing against the fact that there have been noticeable periods at which they and Zuma or the ANC at 

national level have not seen eye to eye, but am pointing at the fact that it ended then and there.

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The current supposed disgruntlement they have against the electronic tolling system and its ramifications on the number of votes they won at the last elections is not a fight they are planning to take up and wage come hell or high waters. Like Premier Makhura’s E-toll commission, this is merely a folly meant to deceive the voters and make them believe that their interests are something actually worth fighting for with disregard for the career stifling consequences that may result in the wake of failure.

I’m sorry to disappoint people who fall under the first above-mentioned group. The ruling party is bereft of the rabble-rousing, fight for their convictions or the greater good ilk of leaders that championed the establishment of the Youth League or the move to racial integration within the party back in the tenuous 1940’s. All it now has is a bunch of individuals who toe the line and would rather whisper their disagreement in the shadows than putting them to the fore and daring to shore up support for them at all costs.

When then Gauteng premier, Ms Nomvula Mokonyane was quoted on this very publication’s online platform in 2012 she stated that “As the provincial government, we are conscious that a solution must be found that will balance the considerations of affordability, impact on public transport but also honouring our commitment to paying our dues,” There must have been some hope or a sense that she would honour her words. But as we know nothing happened. The affordability considerations she spoke of were never revised. In fact, the very reason this issue is still of high contention is exactly because of motorists viewing it as not being affordable. And who might I ask, was the provincial leader of the ANC at that time? It’s the very same newly re-elected Paul Mashatile.

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In isiZulu there is an idiom that says ‘Ithemba alibulali” loosely translated that means there is no harm in having hope. If citizens of Gauteng choose to extend themselves once again and believe that this whole noise being made by Gauteng ANC has even an ounce of sincerity, well to each his own I suppose.

Just know that post 2016 the gantries will still be up and tolling. And the noises of dissent, that have some thinking all that glistens is gold, will have quietened. In the same breath, at a certain prominent address on Sauer street downtown Johannesburg, life will be going on as if nothing ever happened.

Bullshit! Sorry. I meant, excrement from a male Ox!!

Bullshit! Sorry. I meant, excrement from a male Ox!!

For the past twenty years this freedom we so joyously enjoy and like to make noise of, has trapped us in a perpetual existence of having to explain what we meant when we said this or that.

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 I tell you, if you thought that freedom of speech was censored under apartheid, it’s now actually worse and unlike back then when there were laws that an anxious man in uniform whose job description centred around running after, beating to a pulp and imprisoning anyone who dared to break the law by saying or writing about something or someone (usually the government and its plethora of clandestine and questionable activities)-let’s call him AP (Apartheid), things are way less apparent.

In recent times we have a silent and unspoken of ‘man in uniform’ whose job description mirrors that of his pre-1994 comrade-let’s call him PC (politically correct).

Nowadays PC watches whatever you say or write, and unlike yesteryear, speaking out of turn against the government is the least of your worries-that has turned into a national sport, yes we actually love it more than rugby now. Unlike his slow to react friend, AP, PC is diligent and persistent. Indeed he has the power and clout to make sure that everyone, including you beloved grandmother, turns against you and view you with eyes filled with disgust and disappointment.

I have seen a million and one people cornered in some talk show trying explain by saying these stupid words ‘no-no, I don’t hate homosexuals, I didn't say that. I was just saying that if maybe they can do their thing somewhere else’ [sic]. What! Did you just say that? –their interviewer would snap.

I'm not sure how many times I have heard grown men protest how they have no problem, how they would in fact rejoice on the day South Africa elects its first female president. Hahahahaha. Those are the same men who opted to rather vote for the scandal-prone president Zuma instead of ‘risking it’ and pushing then deputy president Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, to the fore (sorry to burst your bubble Msholozi, there were a couple of reasons that made people to actually choose you as president of the ANC, and this, according to me, is one of them).

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The folks who sit in Oxford and compile the dictionary have had their hands full for the past decade, what with the swelling number of words we are now using, that were virtually non-existent about two decades ago. Today our trusty soldier PC will pounce at you if you dared to call someone ‘crippled’ instead of ‘disabled’ You would be burnt at the stake if you ever found yourself uttering the words ‘crazy or retarded, no! You can’t do that cave man! It’s actually mentally incapacitated or challenged.

 Lastly, no matter how drunk you are, don’t even think of calling that hard working busy body who cooks, washes and irons for you, feeds both your kids and dogs, a maid. Are you insane!? Oh, sorry. I meant, are you mentally challenged!? You can’t say that, she is a domestic helper of course, everyone knows that.

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